Video: Watch as Xbox One gets live demoed for the first time

You asked for it, you've begged for it, and it's finally here folks. The live demo of the Xbox One's dashboard is finally here. Yusuf Mehdi and Marc Whitten both go through the demo together as they show off nearly every mainline feature of the Xbox One in a real time setting with no pre-recorded video or "slight of hand" edits. If you've pre-ordered an Xbox One and aren't quite excited for it yet this just might get you to at least smile about the amount of money you may or may not be spending.

Xbox One Release date revealed to be November 22nd, 2013

It has been revealed by Microsoft today that the Xbox One is to be released on November 22nd, 2013. A week after the PlayStation 4, the most important card on the Xbox table has been played. We now know when the launch party will begin for Xbox One and its highest competitor. 

Also posted by Major Nelson are a few pictures of Xbox One's boxed up on a pallet ready for shipping. 

Video: A closer look at the Xbox One's controller

View fullsize

Xbox One Controller

Arguably, the most important part of console gaming is it's controller, not the console itself. The way you interact with the device on a base level is entirely based on your level of comfort with your hands currently (Kinect not withstanding in this context). As more information comes out about the Xbox One on its way up to launch the continued success of its often lofty expectation for its controller is a heated topic. Improved ergonomics, a "fancier" guide button and "impulse triggers" are just a few of the changes we'll see in due time. Fortunately, Major Nelson and company are back for more with the below detailing of the Xbox One's controller. 

 Also note that the most used gamepad on the PC currently is the Xbox 360's wired and wireless controller (with a wireless receiver) although at launch of the Xbox One its controller won't be PC compatible until 2014.

Every Trailer from Microsoft's E3 2013 Press Briefing and then some

Forza Motorsport 5

Ryse: Son of Rome

Kinect Sports Rivals

Dead Rising 3

Halo 5?

Sunset Overdrive

Quantum Break

World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition

Below

Minecraft: Xbox One Edition

THIEF

Summer of Arcade 2013

Powerstar Golf

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

Lost Planet 3

LocoCycle  

Destiny

D4

Crimson Dragon

Brothers

Metal Gear Solid V

Witcher 3

Dark Souls II

Project Spark

Fantasia

Dying Light

Zoo Tycoon

Killer Instinct

Video: Making Halo 4: Return of the Forerunners

​343 Industries is nearly the end of the line on their first big project ( Halo Anniversary not withstanding)  and things are looking very good for an upstart studio who has astronomical expectations trust upon them from the likes of Halo's previous guardians Bungie. 

More from the Making of Halo 4 is on tap with the dramatics at an all time high. It appears 343 is doing all of the rights things although anything can be made to look awesome once their in an editing bay​. That said, if you don't have an Halo 4 boner after watching this something is seriously wrong with you.

Video: Making Halo 4 Your Journey

The wait for Halo 4 is nearing its end and fan's of the now long running series that is largely responsible the the Xbox Platform making it at all can begin to countdown to November 6th, 2012 not as if its a year a way, but a matter of several days. ​The hard work of 343 Industries is on display in the below video with a lot of sneak peeks at the game. Building the hype one video at a time? Yes, this video most definitely is.

Marc Whitten's Annual letter to Xbox LIVE members (includes Summer of Arcade details)

Earlier today Marc Whitten released the following letter to all Xbox LIVE members filling in a few gaps in knowledge following today's Xbox Media Briefing. Along with the letter is the full list and details for this years Summer of Arcade as well.

****************************

Dear Xbox LIVE Members,

I’m really excited about what we unveiled today at E3 and I hope you are also. We announced things that you expect us to deliver, like a great blockbuster game lineup and more TV, sports, movies and music. And we also unveiled new features like Internet Explorer for Xbox and Xbox SmartGlass, which will give you new and exciting ways to enjoy TV, movies, sports, games, web and music across the devices you already own.

Thanks to Xbox LIVE members like you we’re redefining the future of the living room, and I want to take this opportunity to share a more detailed look at what’s in store for entertainment on Xbox.

· International Expansion of Kinect Voice Control and Search. We are deeply committed to bringing the services and entertainment that people love on Xbox LIVE to our members around the world. This year, we are expanding our voice search capabilities to 12 new countries and we are bringing more entertainment applications than ever to more countries on Xbox LIVE. We’ve also made it easier to connect to our global Xbox LIVE service on Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox 360 in English, French, Spanish and Chinese.

· Xbox SmartGlass. This is a brand new Xbox innovation that makes your entertainment smarter, more interactive and more fun – across the devices you already own. It makes your tablet or your phone more intuitive, so if you are watching a movie or playing a game on Xbox 360, relevant content will automatically appear on your SmartGlass device. Imagine having the ability to pick your plays from your tablet instead of the TV screen during an intense game of “Madden,” keeping your next move a surprise to your opponent. Imagine meeting up with a boss in “Ascend” and seeing all the necessary details appear on your phone to help defeat it.  Or, turn your favorite tablet or phone into a great remote control for your Xbox console. We’re excited to make all this possible for you and more.

· Internet Explorer for Xbox. This is something you’ve been asking for, and we waited until we could deliver a web browser experience truly optimized for the TV. You’ll be able to easily find and view the internet content you crave on the best screen in the house. And, with the power of Kinect and Xbox SmartGlass, you’ll able to navigate websites with any device or the sound of your voice. 

· Favorites. This is another request we’ve heard frequently. Favorites allows you to personalize the dashboard by saving your movies, TV, games, music and the web right to the home screen in the dashboard. Favorites will make it easier and faster than ever to get to your favorite content on Xbox and Xbox LIVE. 

· Xbox on Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Xbox is the premium entertainment experience for video, music, and games on your Xbox 360, on Windows 8 and on Windows Phone. And of course our LIVE service makes it even easier to share, discover, play and more with all of your content.

• Xbox Music will bring you a world-class music library and great new ways to enjoy, share and discover new music across all of your Windows devices.
• Xbox Games makes your experience with the console even better. You’ll have access to your avatar, recent games and leaderboards, and connections to your friends, giving you anywhere access to things you love about Xbox on the console. You can even purchase Xbox 360 games from anywhere and have them ready for download the moment you turn on your console.
• Xbox Video provides you access to the video marketplace, making it easy to browse and search for TV episodes and movies. You can see your videos in your personal collection and even cue the TV show or movie up on your Xbox 360.

· New Search Features. Last year, we brought you the ability to search for your favorite movie, TV show, or actor with your voice. This year, we’re taking it one step further and bringing you the ability to search for your favorite genre. Now, you’ll be able to say “Xbox, Bing comedy,” to quickly find movies and TV shows across your entertainment apps. Not only can you search for your favorite type of content, but we’re also extending Bing voice search to include content in the YouTube app. The best viral videos will now be discoverable in your search results, all with the sound of your voice. 

· Performance Improvements. We continue to invest in improving the performance of the Xbox dashboard. Whether you’re getting in and out of entertainment applications, browsing the games library or navigating large entertainment catalogs, we are working to make these experiences quick and seamless. 

· Summer of Arcade. Each year Summer of Arcade delivers the most anticipated downloadable games of the season, and this year is no exception. With five back-to-back weeks of unparalleled releases, the fifth annual Summer of Arcade includes: 

• “Deadlight” (Tequila Works/Microsoft Studios). “Deadlight” is a puzzle platformer, where the player must take advantage of the main character’s agility to solve obstacles, and dodge zombies, manipulating the many interactive elements of the scenery. With more walking corpses than bullets, the feeling of danger is constant.
• “Dust: An Elysian Tail” (Humble Hearts/Microsoft Studios). As the mysterious warrior, Dust, your action-packed journey will take you from peaceful glades to snowy mountaintops and beyond. Battle dozens of enemies at once with an easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master combat system, and uncover the story of an ancient civilization on the brink of extinction as you fight to uncover your own past in a gorgeous hand-painted world.
• “Hybrid” (5TH Cell/5TH Cell). “Hybrid” is a pioneering third person shooter set in the near future, where global conflict exists between a species known as the Variant and a rebel human faction known as the Paladins. 5TH Cell strives to give players a completely new gameplay experience never seen before in the genre. 
• “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD” (Robomodo/Activision). “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD” takes the best elements of the classic “THPS” games and gives them a fresh update to create an all new skateboarding experience. Tapping into fans’ muscle memories, and combining sharp visuals with the best controls ever in a Tony Hawk game, the feel is cutting edge yet timeless.
• “Wreckateer” (Iron Galaxy/Microsoft Studios). “Wreckateer” uses Kinect to put you in control of a massive castle-wrecking ballista. With the help of Wreck and Tinker, travel the land and destroy 60 castles using six magical projectiles, and explore the infinite ways you can wreak havoc with “Wreckateer’s” fully-dynamic destruction. 

· Xbox LIVE Tournaments. We are working with Virgin Gaming to launch a new tournament service on Xbox LIVE, later this year. This new entertainment app will allow players to choose from a wide variety of free-to-play or paid-entry tournaments and head-to-head matches, for top titles from leading publishers. Xbox LIVE Tournaments, powered by Virgin Gaming, makes tournaments easy to join, fun and accessible to all types of gamers.

This year, we’re delivering the best in entertainment from Xbox. We’re bringing you more premium games, TV, movies, sports, web and music, enjoyed in unique ways that only Xbox can deliver. We’re making the entertainment experience complete with more ways than ever to discover and engage with all your favorite content across devices. Our mission is to make Xbox an amazing place for all of your entertainment – anytime, on any device. Keep playing, sharing, watching and pushing us – it’s only getting better from here.

See you on Xbox,

Marc Whitten

Gamertag – Notwen

[Via Major Nelson]

Marc Whitten's Letter to the Xbox Live Community on the "New" New Xbox Experience

With the arrival of the latest major Dashboard update to your Xbox 360 comes a few words from Xbox Live's CVP Marc Whitten. 

Dear Xbox LIVE Members,

Today, we’re launching a new Xbox 360 experience that connects you with your favorite entertainment and games like never before and makes finding and enjoying entertainment as simple as it should be.

It’s a vision we shared at E3 and I’d like to thank you for all of your valuable feedback along this incredible ride and share a little more about what we have in store this holiday – from Beacons, cloud storage and Facebook sharing, to our latest entertainment offerings.

Building upon our great lineup of partners, we’ve teamed up with nearly 40 of the world’s leading TV & entertainment providers to bring you an array of live and on-demand TV, movies, games, sports and music experiences. The first wave of new partners rolls out today with experiences like EPIX and TODAY (MSNBC) in the US, LOVEFiLM in the UK, Sky Go in Germany, Premium Play by (MediaSet) in Italy and Telefonica España – Movistar Imagenio in Spain. And we’ll continue to roll out more entertainment content to Xbox LIVE in the coming months.

Beyond entertainment, you’ll find a number of features designed to make your Xbox experience more personal, social and effortless. The dashboard has an entirely new look and feel and a completely reimagined interface that makes your entertainment accessible through simple voice commands. Now, using voice search with Bing on Xbox, you can find and play the programming you want across multiple entertainment providers without having to search for a remote control. In the mood for ‘The Office?’ Just say “Xbox, Bing, ‘The Office,’” and Xbox will display all episodes available from various entertainment apps across the console.

We’re also bringing you Beacons and Facebook sharing, further integrating social into your Xbox experience. Before jumping into an episode of ‘The Office,’ you can activate a Beacon to let your friends know that you want to play, say, “Gears of War 3.” Then, sit back and relax with the Dunder Mifflin crew. The Beacon will let you know when a LIVE friend is available for a round of Horde in Gears. After the game, use Facebook Sharing to tout your achievements and showcase your in-game accomplishments through direct posts.

While we’re proud of our capability to connect you remotely to the global community of more than 35 million Xbox LIVE members, sometimes there’s nothing like being with your friends and family. And so we’ve added cloud storage so you can access game saves and your LIVE profile, including achievements, from your friends’ consoles as well.

Lastly, with the ever-expanding library of content available, we realize Xbox is enjoyed by all members of the family. Rest assured that our parental controls have improved in parallel with this new content. Parents can manage their child’s console activity, sharing on social networking sites as well as regulate access to games, movies, television, and music. Additionally, the update brings enhanced navigation to Xbox 360 Family Settings to better integrate with Kinect.

We strive to continually innovate and bring meaningful experiences to each and every member of the Xbox LIVE community. Currently, our community is already enjoying 2.1 billion hours of entertainment each month. We imagine this number will only continue to grow as you discover enhanced entertainment on Xbox this holiday that is instantly searchable, easily discoverable and enjoyable in extraordinary new ways. We hope you enjoy this new chapter in the evolution of Xbox and continue to push us to write the next.

See you on LIVE,

Marc Whitten

Gamertag – Notwen

Also arriving on December 6th to a Windows Phone 7 phone near you is a free Xbox Live Companion app that gives you more control of your Xbox experience.

Xbox Companion search powered by Bing. Search the unified Xbox catalog for movies, TV shows, music, games and apps using the Windows phone. View a detailed unified results page across all content providers. You can see recently played games and apps and browse the Zune video catalog

Using the Xbox Companion app you can learn more details about the movie, TV show, music or game that is playing on your console. You can also get friend activity (friends online, friends with beacons, friends who have recently played), achievements and related items.  You’ll also be able to select a search result, and launch a movie, TV show, game or app on the connected console as well as play, pause, fw, rw the playing video or music on the connected Xbox,initiate media purchase and navigate your Xbox console with Windows Phone using the Xbox Companion.

[Via Major Nelson]

E3 2011: Get the lowdown on Forza Motorsport 4 Kinect Headtracking

One of the big new features coming to the 4th game in the Forza Motorsport franchise is headtracking via Kinect. Albeit you have to have Kinect to use this feature, the fact that headtracking is a doable undertaking now really affirms that we are indeed in the future. The below video shows off how the tech works and just how insane the future present day of videogames is.

Paul Thurrott, you just don't get it!

It isn't wise to comment on opinion from others as opinion is just that, opinion. You have the right to say and do what you want in a differing manner about any and every topic. Yet, when you are wrong you are wrong. An so, we are brought back to the wonderfully mis-spoken words of Mr. Paul Thurrott. A man of varying opinion that continues to feed off of the proverbial bosom that is Microsoft is such a way that prevents him from seeing the forest from the trees time after time. There are those in the gaming press and there are those in the technology press. Both shall cross path's from time to time and both shall wage verbal war. A war that most do not pay attention to, but nevertheless it is most definitely there.

Now that the stage is somewhat set, lets get to the point. There are those who look at Microsoft with two minds. One of a technology platform company and one of a consumer electronics company (mostly in the vein of Xbox and Zune/Windows Phone). For those on the technology company bend the other side couldn't make any less since. Why would it? We all use tech everyday while consumer electronic tends to only fit in when we are ready for it (hence "gaming/music/movie time"). 

Now, before I continue I implore you to give Windows Weekly 193 a listen to hear what it sounds like when a man from the technology press gets his head up his own ass. And while that may sound a bit harsh mind you it's coming from a goober. Yes, I remember that Paul. Us games press goobers can't possibly understand the wit and wiseness that emanates from such tech royalty. 

--

To set the tone further, it's actually been a little while since those past three paragraph's were written. Rash thoughts were most definitely flowing and it made every sense in the world to let the words of WinSupersite guru Paul Thurrott tear me a new one so it would justify the quick and nasty response I had ready.

Everything Paul said is the podcast referenced above isn't wrong. In fact he's right. Xbox should be its own company. I've thought this for quite sometime. It might as well be a different company already as it's run on such a slant from everything else "Microsoft" most gamers out there only see Microsoft to mean Xbox. A feat that seemed mere IMPOSSIBLE only 10 years ago before the official launch of the humongous black box that could. Unfortunately, much like The Social Network got the whole of the Facebook story wrong, so does Mr. Thurrott.

And here comes the quick money discussion. Something has to give. Is all of this about how much money you're making now or is it about pushing boundaries for the future? Microsoft is very much a Windows company. No one is going to argue that the lion share of their revenue is derived from the Windows group. Of course it is, its been a steam rolling train for what seems like forever in the computing world. Unfortunately when compared to Xbox things aren't so rosy in the bringing home the bacon department. Yet, Mr. Thurrott will continue to conveniently leave out the 10 years of Xbox versus the more than quarter century of Windows. Calling the latter entrenched into its market is much more than a simple understatement. 

So, where does this leave us at? It leaves us at a point where its rather easy to ignore the strides Xbox has made in the gaming industry. Many of the innovations we've seen over the last ten years have come directly from the Xbox team. Albeit, you won't see any of that on a quarterly or yearly report. What about a digital store front on a stand-alone device, not for music, but for tangible software in Xbox LIVE Arcade years before Apple vaunted App Store? What about making HD a mandatory requirement? What about entering a market with the likes of Nintendo and Sony where both should have crushed Xbox? Sony was so far in a way the leader of the gaming world it was crazy for Microsoft to even bother. Yet, there did. There are no time machine equipped Deloreans to be had so why harp on the immense investment endured to make Xbox a success in the minds of it customers? Look at Sony now. They are just now (five years in with the PS3) getting back on their feet in a meaningful way with PlayStation. Who would have thought they would be chasing Xbox in many ways? Would there be a PlayStation Network if Xbox didn't push for Xbox LIVE the way they have?

 It would be easy to keep going with example after example. Xbox is largely doing exactly what they do best, as Paul would say. Why walk away from that because they aren't bringing home enough of the bacon after only ten years against previous market juggernauts versus the unique market that is technology at large? The tech industry is not a direct simile to the game industry. The fact Paul doesn't get that is the long and short the discussion. Arguing for your point of view is cute and all, yet on if you understand both sides.